Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

Try Lyn Macallister Music in Auckland if you havent already. They only sell to trade so you need to be a luthier in business which it sounds like you are.

Like most things in life things are often more complicated than they seem as first. So thanks @mooshalah all useful stuff. I actually purchased some ethanol (it was pretty hard to track down) but have a big tin of this stuff whatever it actually is to use up so that's what I am doing. So far so good...

Thanks for that.

I believe Richard has his mike over the bridge. I think holding it over the sound hole will result in a better T(1,1)1 response. The guitar looks good. I also wonder about the consistent lack of T(1,1)1 on your plots. I just wonder in you setup something is filtering out the lower frequencies. It s...

I mixed and store the cut in a glass jar. When using it i put some in a small plastic (PE??) bottle with a tip so i can apply it accurately to the fad. I'm using "shellac reducer" which is methanol I believe.
Its all going well at present, so I'm happy.

The dark central one might have been stained?
The one next to that might be Rewarewa (honeysuckle) very common decorative wood over here.

Well if lots of them show then your best bet will be to find a similar one and nick the veneers from that. Most NZ timbers are bland, Kauri, Rimu, Tawa, Totara etc. The darker ones in the middle might be Puriri. None of the grain patterns look like NZ timber to me. There's a place called Rarefind ti...

Do you know that they are NZ woods? They're all veneers and I would guess there's not a lot of native wood made into veneer. Common to see rimu veneer (reddish colour) and tawa (cream/white) but not many others. Nothing looks too familiar, suspect veneer has been stained or discoloured with lacquer ...

That looks OK......just kidding that looks amazing.

FWIW the Mirotone guy told me it can be used as a seal coat and no more than 4 coats total - but whatever you did keep doing it.

Fresh pack of ground blonde shellac.

I'm now French polishing the top. Going Ok For anyone doubting how good an FP finish is relative to other options.... I mixed up a fresh batch, whats called a "2lb cut" which in fact was 112grams of shellac (powdered in my case) with 500mls of alchohol. I made a bit of a mess of this as I tried to d...

Ordered yesterday....arrived this morning. Unexpectedly great service. And not that expensive after all. Colour me impressed.

I recall considering making the whole thing and then cutting "slices" off for each rosette. However I'm not planning to make many more guitars and so the time investment didn't seem worth it to me. It took me a long enough time to make my "stick' of mosiac. Plus it was nice to be able to use it to m...

Scratch that request Allen. Just called Mirotone nz who were super helpful and have ordered the pc3220 which should be delivered in a couple of days. Have to say that was great service. Ridiculously small delivery charge. The fact that it will keep in the can for a while is a major plus. Better get ...

Ok thanks very much Allen. So assuming i dont go for the Mirothane, which particular product should i be looking for? I've read about 3220 but not sure what that actually is? Ill call them tomorrow when they should be back at work Cheers and TIA. If it ends up looking anything llike the finish on yo...

I made my own rosette for my classical build. I stopped when i had got the component parts and then cut thin slices and built the rosette on the soundboard. There are pictures in my thread.

Hi peeps. I have one classical to finish. I'm going to use French Polish on the soundboard which means i don't need a lot of lacquer. I have used rattle cans before with variable results. I woukd like to improve on that. My son in law actually knows how to spray stuff and has offered to do it for me...

Thanks for the comments, it will look even better when its finished. I tap tested the body again today after final sanding as I was worried I would drop the top frequency doing that. It hasn't changed much if at all which is good. I'm going to leave faffing with the back until I have it finished and...

A bit of an update. Now have all the bindings on and am in the process of final sanding and prepping for lacquer. As usual I had a few stuff ups on the binding but nothing fatal, to err is human and all that. Overall, Im happy with the ways it went, one my better binding jobs and the clean up was wa...

Hmmm.. found it straight away this time..thanks @Dave M

@DaveM..... Do I have to join up to Robbies site to see that? Cannot seem to find it there.
Cheers

Hi Martin Im tapping at the bridge position and the mike is about 250mm above that. If I move the guitar so the mike is over the soundhole it increases the T1,1, which although fairly small graphwise appears consistently at 85Hz. All the other frequencies plotted exactly the same today with the neck...

I noticed that too. There's a very small peak around 80 that I think is T1,1. But it's very weak compared to the top and back. My bolt on neck arrangement leaves an air gap which might be affecting it so I tried with the neck bolted on. Didn't seem to make a huge difference. Neither did modelling wi...

Thanks, just what I need. Will be my next job after picking up my vege order!!

This is the stage at which I should do any thinning of the top, If I am going to. As I see it, with the top at 180hz now, prior to the bridge going on, the (T1,1)2 will only drop with the added mass of around 20g at the moment, unless I can get the bridge down a bit. Its rosewood so I doubt it thoug...